SURVIVING THE STATE, REMAKING THE CHURCH IBD

Sinopsis

This sociological portrait presents how Chinese Christians have coped with life under a hostile regime over a span of different historical periods, and how Christian churches as collective entities have been reshaped by ripples of social change. China?s change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, or from an agrarian society to an urbanizing society, are admittedly significant phenomena worthy of scholarly attention, but real changes are about values and beliefs that give rise to social structures over time. The growth of Christianity has become interwoven with the disintegration or emergence of Chinese cultural beliefs, political ideologies, and commercial values.Relying mainly on an oral history method for data collection, the authors allow the narratives of Chinese Christians to speak for themselves. Identifying the formative cultural elements, a sociohistorical analysis also helps to lay out a coherent understanding of the complexity of religious experiences for Christians in the Chinese world. This book also serves to bring back scholarly discussions on the habits of the heart as the condition that helps form identities and nurture social morality, whether individuals engage in private or public affairs.''Li Ma and Jin Li have written an unusually valuable book on the recent history of Christianity in China.áUnlike too many others (often speculative or ill-informed), they support their general narrative with extensive ethnographic research. The individuals they have interviewed provide fascinating insights into conversions in prison, the Christian ?harvest? from the Tiannamen Square massacres, effective evangelism at McDonald?s and Starbucks, the emergence of Christian NGOs, ongoing tensions between believers and the Chinese Communist Party, the surprising emergence of self-conscious Chinese Calvinist theology, and much more.áThe result is extraordinary insight concerning perhaps the most important scene of Christian development in the world today.''--Mark Noll, Professor at the University of Notre Dame''Ma and Li have given us an invaluable set of voices from China?s Christian world. Through patient combing of printed texts and many hours of interviews with people today, they allow Chinese Christians to speak for themselves and let us understand how Christianity has become China?s fastest-growing--and one of its most influential--religions. Understanding China requires understandings its faiths and beliefs, and especially those of its youngest but most dynamic faith: Christianity.''--Ian Johnson, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, Author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao''Readers in the West and the East alike are keen to know more about life in China, both today and in the recent past. For Christian readers, this eager curiosity extends to the churches of China, the majority of which remain officially illegal and are often hidden. What does it mean to be a Christian in China today? How do today?s Chinese